


Open your eyes

by StarsAreMassive



Series: Join Our Houses [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 17:38:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17771246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarsAreMassive/pseuds/StarsAreMassive
Summary: The Starks call Gendry to a bedside vigil.





	Open your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Set at Winterfell, before the War with the Night King.
> 
> I wrote this before season 7, so it'll seem a little AU.

They'd sent for him on the third day. Rickon had barged in on him, Shaggydog at his heels and hadn't muttered a single word. He hadn't had to. One sharp jerk of the head and Gendry was following him out of the smithy like the flames were chasing him.

Maester Tarly had looked far too relieved when they'd gotten there. "You came quickly. Good."

It took everything in him to keep his feet. "What's happened? Is she – she's not –"

"She's still breathing," said the Maester and suddenly Gendry could too. "But she isn't showing any signs of waking. It's been three days. If she doesn't wake soon…"

Gendry had heard of people falling into what they called an 'eternal sleep'. Breathing, hearts beating, even muttering in their sleep like one does when they're in the throes of their dreams – but never waking. Their families watched and many were slowly driven to mad and desperate measures.

"But she  _will_ ," he'd insisted and it sounded like a plea. "She's a Stark. Look at Bran – he should have died and her injuries weren't nearly –"

"Please, Gendry." Jon's rasp came from behind him and Gendry turned to see him and Sansa staring at him with sorrowful eyes. "We've all tried, and all we had to show for it were a few hitched breaths. We need her to wake up."

_We cannot lose another wolf from the pack._

Gendry nodded and swallowed what felt like a lead ball and Tarly pushed open the door to her chambers.

He stepped through.

She could be still, so still sometimes – unnaturally so, thanks to her water dancing. But there was a wrongness to it now, oppressive and dark and it belonged nowhere near that fierce girl of such fire and life.

He could barely raise his eyes to look at her until he took the vacant seat beside her bed. He took her hand and not for the first time he marvelled at how tiny it was. He'd seen her strength and what she could do, but no one would ever think it looking at her hands.  _A lady's hands_ , he'd told her once and she'd laughed and looked sad. Her lashes looked ink black against her cheeks with how pale she was. He could see a web of pale blue veins, carrying her blood and keeping her alive.

But she was  _too_  small and  _too_ pale and everything was just  _wrong._

"Arya," he croaked. "Arya,  _please_."

His hand stroked her cheek. "You're scaring your family. Not me though – I know you're just being stubborn – but you have to wake up now."

His hand rested on her chest below her neck, feeling it rise and fall.

"It's not like you've got any right to be lazy, you spoiled little noble. You're not the one hammering away in a forge day and night. Or trying to get better at your learning at the same time,  _and_  fitting in some practice with a bloody great big warhammer. It should be  _me_  lying there resting up in a lovely featherbed. I wish it were me."

He remembered watching her sleep many times before today. When she was a dirty little orphan boy and men he didn't trust slept too close. When he knew she was a girl and stared at her face and thought he was the stupidest boy in Westeros for not noticing it before. When they'd been stuck in Harrenhall and he'd seen her properly scared for the first time and charged himself with watching over her. When the Brotherhood had taken them and she wouldn't let them take her away from him.

Those nights she had moved, twisted, shifted in her sleep. She snored – she'd never admit it but she did - and now she was still and silent and he would have given anything from a twitch of the fingers or even a sigh.

He pushed a little on her chest. "Come on, now. You're stronger than this –  _better_ than this. Stay asleep much longer and no man will believe you're the fierce she-wolf of the North – bested by a little tap on the head."

He remembered once, the squire of some visiting lord or other had claimed she was all talk – a girl playing dress up and trying to run with the boys. That was, until she'd beaten him bloody and he'd retreated from the practice yard trying to hide his tears. Bronn the Sellsword had come to Gendry after, swearing he could see the smith's grin all the way from the ramparts.

Gendry moved and sat on the edge of the bed and gripped her shoulders.

"You have to wake up." He gave her the gentlest of shakes. "They're going mad, do you understand me? They can't stand it. They can't eat. They can't sleep. All because  _m'lady high_  is too selfish to wake up. There's things that need doing and I can't be up here waiting until you're good and ready to open your eyes but I can't fucking  _leave here_  until you do –"

His head dropped to her chest and his energy left him. Not that he'd had much anyway after not sleeping since Nymeria had dragged Arya through the gates of Winterfell with her head broken and bleeding.

She was still breathing, he had to remind himself, and the rhythm of her breaths was almost soothing. Almost.

" _Arry_ ," Gendry choked on a broken sob. "Open your eyes, Arry.  _Please_. Please, please, please,  _please_ …"

He said it like a prayer, mumbled it like she used to mumble her list, until he fell asleep, bent over her chest and his legs limp against the floor.


End file.
